The fish that threatened national…

College student Lara Hayhurst was not prepared to let officials treat her little pet like Osama ‘fin’ Laden

You guessed it. Cretins at airport security wouldn’t allow a college student to bring her pet gold fish onto the plane.

I wasn’t prepared, however, for the TSA to stop me right at the entrance, proclaiming that no small pets, including fish, were permitted through security. I had, however, just received the blessing of the ticket agents at US Airways.

The TSA supervisor was called over, and he berated me profusely. He exclaimed that in no way, under no circumstances, was a small fish allowed to pass through security, regardless of what the ticket agents said.

Give this asshole any real power, and he’d be a full-tilt Nazi, yes he would.

However, the story has a happy ending. She smuggled the fish onto the plane, after pretending to flush it down the toilet, then bursting into tears to make security feel guilty.

As I write this I sit with a cat in my lap and my fish, which I have aptly renamed X-ray, swimming contentedly in his glass-beaded bowl. And even though my actions may send Tom Ridge reeling and upset the karma of the Department of Homeland Security, I really don’t care.